April 15, 2003
More Helen
After writing my previous entry about Woflgang Petersen's Troy and the unfortunate choice of actress to protray Helen, I stumbled upon a TV mini series that premieres next weekend on the USA Network, Helen of Troy, starring Sienna Guillory.
Arguably, a better, and slightly more believable choice for Helen. But, the producers couldn't help but screw up a 2,800-year-old classic by introducing this interesting plot "update":
and Helen’s subsequent rape by Agamemnon in public while the Greeks mercilessly kill much of the people of Troy and enslave most of the few remaining survivors.
Of course, Helen was not raped by Agamemnon, but in this version, it appears that the Greek leader is set up as a villain. The original Trojan War storyline apparently didn't have the Hollywood "punch" that would make it digestible for classically-challenged audiences in early 21st century USA.
One should have expected as much though from people whose informative site informs us that the story of the Trojan Horse was first recorded by Virgil in the Augustan era!
The classical world has not fared well in English language films and TV. A notable exception is Andrei Konchalovsky's 1997 Odyssey (but then Konchalovsky is Russian-born and educated). I suspect that the upcoming crop of Greek-based projects will be more like Gladiator ("Rome was founded as a Republic"), i.e., really spectacular pieces embedded in the fictional Ancient World that Western audiences have gotten used to. It's really a pity.
Posted by Dienekes at April 15, 2003 12:04 AM | PermaLink The heavy burden of making better historical films lays on the shoulders of our educators. we have to inform kids what the ancient world was really like. Maybe then more of more of the veiwing audience will retch as i do when they watch one of these films.
Not that all of them are bad cinema. But still i would to be able to sit back and ejoy the film more without feeling compelled to explain to friends "what it was really like".
I understand that their are times when something has to be changed to suit the constraints of movie story telling. The changing of the thumbs down from meaning mercy to meaning death was probably right for Gladiator, so as not to confuse the audience who have opposite associations with the gesture. but it does us a disservice to our understanding of our heritage and culture when we present the ancient people haveing the same sense of ethics, and style as we do
hallo helen....
Posted by: fhiea at January 3, 2004 11:41 AM